1997 Formula 1 World Champion Jacques Villeneuve described McLaren’s lack of disappointment after Japan’s Grand Prix as “strange”, despite losing to a race victory.
McLaren expanded their lead in the Formula 1 Constructors Championship, but was beaten by a victory by Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.
Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri were able to stick with Verstappen, but considering that they had no chance to pass at Suzuki, they really couldn’t challenge him.
McLaren seemed to have a performance advantage over Red Bull, but they couldn’t take advantage of it.
Villeneuve was surprised by the reaction of McLaren to miss out on his victory in Japan.
“That’s not what we were seeing on TV. If the undercut worked, Piastri would have overtaken Norris because he pitted the aforementioned lap, but that wasn’t the case.”
“So there was some damage control. They didn’t seem to be overly disappointed in the strange thing. They should be the first and second, but not because they were slow, but because the team and driver were better.
“That should hurt. They should think, ‘We did something wrong this weekend, we should have had a better shot.’
“If you pit on the same lap, of course, unless you have a big problem with the pit stop (it will overtake). In the worst case, you pit behind.
Rand Norris
McLaren always has a “conservative” strategy
McLaren dumped many victories last year due to poor strategy choices.
Former W-Series driver Naomi Schiff feels that McLaren could once again be too conservative in Japan, rather than “gambling and taking risks.”
“Some of the excuses were turbulent air, but Oscar would have been in turbulent air,” she said. “Then he said Rand was saving on tires.
“I feel like I want to run on the conservative side, not gambling or taking risks.
“It feels like they want to get a safe point on the board and they feel like they’re thinking about a long game.”
McLaren is 36 points ahead of Mercedes in terms of F1 constructor ranking.